Fish Breeders in Dinh Quan are Sorrowful Because of Loses.

Mr. Ngoc is feeding his fishes and keeps them until December with the hope that the price goes up again.

    Mr. Cao Van Long, Hamlet 1, Phu Ngoc commune, who has been raising 6 fish rafts on La Nga river said that in order to raise such amount of fishes, he had to mortgage his “Red” book (land use right certificate) to hire-purchase breeding feed from the dealer. So far his debt for the food has reached up to VND500 million ($30,144), the fish feed price is still expensive meanwhile fish price falls down by VND3,000 – 4,000 a kilo, compared with the same period last year. Currently Long and his family are making great effort to keep the fish rafts until December as they hope the price will be up at the end of the year.

    Mr. Le Hien’s family , hamlet 3, Phu Ngoc commune, could be afford to buy young fishes, total cost of breeding food, which is estimated to reach some VND500 million ($30,144), depends on breeding food dealer. As usual, he catches the fishes for sale after 7 months and returns the debt to dealer and keeps certain profit for family’s expenditure on Tet holiday. Things are, however, different this year; he has catched fishes several times but the pay just helps him cover 50 percent of the debt while the fishes remaining in the lake are negligible.

    In addition to Mr. Long and Mr. Hien, over 200 households growing fishes on La Nga river have faced the same plight. Mrs. Tran Thi Hue, an owner of breeding feed dealer in Hamlet 2 said that the price sometimes increases at VND100,000 ($6) a kilo. Recent it is a bit down but it goes up by VND60,000 ($3.6) a kilo compared with the same period last year. Moreover, since it is the time when fishes are harvested, deceased price of the feed can not significantly make up for the loses they suffer.

(Source: Dong Nai newspaper, Translated by L.H)